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mark-funkhouser1

Mark Funkhouser

Former Publisher

Mark Funkhouser, a former publisher of Governing magazine, is president of Funkhouser & Associates, LLC, an independent consulting firm focused on helping public officials and their private-sector partners create better, more fiscally sustainable communities. He served as mayor of Kansas City, Mo., from 2007 to 2011. Prior to being elected mayor, Funkhouser was the city's auditor for 18 years and was honored in 2003 as a Governing Public Official of the Year. Before becoming publisher of Governing, he served as director of the Governing Institute.

Funkhouser is an internationally recognized auditing expert, author and teacher in public administration and its fiscal disciplines. He holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in public administration and sociology from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, an M.B.A. in accounting and finance from Tennessee State University, and a master's degree in social work from West Virginia University.

If managers don't know when technology should replace people, they can destroy the product they're trying to create.
Good jobs are proven to reduce crime, yet much of the economy's recent growth is due to dead-end jobs with low wages and no benefits.
A book by a government HR expert explains what drives public-sector workers and how that differs from the private sector.
Prudent fiscal stewardship is essential to self-government.
ESOPs give employees part ownership of their companies and prevent major job losses when owners retire. But only two states support them.
The country removes the anonymousness of government by publicly identifying the people responsible for particular projects on street signs. It’s an anti-corruption approach that has lots of possibilities for U.S. governments.
Paul Volcker and Richard Ravitch’s State Budget Crisis Task Force recommends ways government can make reporting cleaner, clearer and simpler.
Results-based accountability measures results in the real world.
Trust in government is at historic lows. That will change, but it will happen from the bottom up.
It's tempting to plunge in and try to fix everything right away. But in trying to do too much too soon, it's easy to say something dumb and get into trouble.